FROM ‘IMPENETRABLE’ TO IMPROBABLE: In the face of withering criticism from members of his own party, President Trump is backtracking on the anti-hacking plan he discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, an idea Sen. Lindsey Graham dismissed as “not the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, but it’s pretty close.” A little more than 24 hours after tweeting “Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded,” Trump tweeted an update in which he said, “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn’t mean I think it can happen. It can’t.”
In response to the original idea, Trump’s bipartisan critics seemed to be scrambling to come up with the best version of the old “fox guarding the hen house” analogy.
Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted, “Partnering with Putin on a ‘Cyber Security Unit’ is akin to partnering with Assad on a ‘Chemical Weapons Unit.’”
Ash Carter, former defense secretary, said on CNN, “This is like the guy who robbed your house proposing a working group on burglary.”
Sen. John McCain’s reaction to the notion of working with Putin to prevent election hacking was dripping with sarcasm. “I am sure that Vladimir Putin could be of enormous assistance in that effort, since he’s doing the hacking,” McCain said on CBS.
Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s Treasury secretary defended the notion, before the president shot it down. He called it, “a very important step forward,” that will “make sure that they never interfere in any democratic elections or conduct any cybersecurity.” Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Mnuchin said the plan was “like any other strategic alliance, whether we’re doing military exercises with our allies,” and he called the idea that Russia and the U.S. would fight cyber together, “a very significant accomplishment for President Trump.”
ACCEPTING PUTIN’S LIES: It was left to Trump administration officials who were not in the room to push back against another Kremlin narrative that came out of the president’s two-hour-plus private sit down with Putin in Hamburg, Germany, Friday. Both Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after the meeting that Trump accepted Putin’s denial of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. “President Vladimir Putin assured him that this is not true and that the Russian authorities did not try to influence U.S. elections. President Trump said he accepted this denial. This is all.” Lavrov said, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry transcript.
Trump tweeted yesterday, “I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion.” That opinion, expressed in Poland last week, was that Russia and other countries may have meddled, but “nobody knows.”
Nevertheless U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley was unequivocal on CBS. “President Trump still knows that they meddled. President Putin knows that they meddled, but he’s never going to admit to it, and that’s all that happened,” Haley said. “I think we need to be realistic about what happened. You had two men walk into the room. You had two men who knew the exact same thing, which is Russia did meddle in the elections. I think President Trump wanted to make sure that President Putin was aware that he was acknowledging it, that he knew it. I think President Putin did what we all expected him to do, which was deny it. And I think that is what it is.”
On Fox, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus insisted the president “absolutely did not believe” Putin’s denial. “What he did is he immediately came into the meeting, talked about Russian meddling in the U.S. election, went after that issue at least two separate times,” and then “after spending a large part of the meeting on the subject, moved on to other topics,” Priebus said. But then Priebus added that while Trump “believes that Russia probably committed all of these acts that we’ve been told of,” he also believes that other countries participated.
BLIND SPOT: The duo of Sens. McCain and Graham, two resolute Russia hawks, were again among Trump’s sharpest critics on the Right for his handling of the Putin face-to-face. “When it comes to Russia, he’s got a blind spot and to forgive and forget when it comes to Putin regarding cyberattacks is to empower Putin,” Graham said on NBC. “Even if he brought it up, he’s not willing to do anything about it, so it makes me more committed than ever to get sanctions on President Trump’s desk punishing Putin.”
McCain said the Russians are essentially getting away with meddling, not just in the U.S. election, but in other countries as well. “They have not paid a single price for that,” McCain said on CBS. “if you were Vladimir Putin, who I have gotten to know over the years, you’re sitting there, and you got away with literally trying to change the outcome, not just of our election, the French election, tried to overthrow the government of Montenegro, a beautiful little country.”
McCain was also sharply critical of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for his statement after the Trump-Putin meeting that “by and large,” U.S and Russia objectives in Syria are exactly the same. “Maybe they have got the right approach and we have got the wrong approach.” McCain’s eye-rolling response: “You can’t make that up. You can’t make that up.”
“These are the same people that use precision-graded weapons to strike hospitals in Aleppo where sick and wounded people are,’ McCain said, adding Tillerson was “divorced” from a fundamental of principle of American democracy, namely the advocacy of freedom. “We know who is right and who is wrong here.” Asked by host John Dickerson if he regretted his vote to confirm Tillerson, McCain replied, “Sometimes I do.”
OLD TRICK: On CNN, old Russia hand Ash Carter said he’s seen this movie before. “The Russians pulled out the old playbook. I’ve seen all this going back to Russian and Soviet days. When confronted with something they’ve done wrong, ask for U.S. intelligence — old trick. Propose a working group, in this case on cyber.” Carter said, “it’s fine to talk to the Russians,” you just have to be careful what you say, and how much much of what they say say you believe. “I’m very skeptical about cooperating with Russia in Syria. Why I think it’s important that we capitalize our nuclear arsenal because they’re doing a nuclear buildup. There are a lot of dimensions to the Russia problem,” Carter said.
Good Monday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre), National Security Writer Travis J. Tritten (@travis_tritten) and Senior Editor David Brown (@dave_brown24). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter @dailyondefense.
MOSUL MOP-UP: Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi could be seen on Iraqi television making a victory tour of Mosul, even as his soldiers were still battling remnants of ISIS in the old city section in western Mosul. Abadi met yesterday with his commanders, and his office issued a statement congratulating “the heroic fighters and Iraqi people for the great victory,” even as fighting continues.
Iraq’s second largest city was overrun in 2014, and it was from Mosul from which ISIS then declared an Islamist caliphate over a wide swath of Iraq and Syria, where it imposed a brutal rule by terror. Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul last October. It is not clear how many ISIS fighters are left in the small patch of the old city, but they appear intent on fighting to the death, and Iraqi forces seem prepared to accommodate them. While life is slowly returning to some semblance of normalcy, much of the city is in ruins.
“Even more challenging is what comes next,” Tony Blinken, deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, writes in the New York Times this morning. “Twenty-five million Sunni Muslims live between Baghdad and Damascus. They have been alienated from their governments. Unless they can be convinced that their state will protect and not persecute them, an Islamic State 2.0 will find plenty of new recruits and supporters.”
SYRIA CEASE-FIRE: Meanwhile over in Syria, ISIS is surrounded in its other putative capital, Raqqa, and a cease-fire in Syria, agreed to by the U.S. and Russian presidents, has gone into effect in the country’s south. “Syrian ceasefire seems to be holding. Many lives can be saved. Came out of meeting. Good!,” President Trump tweeted yesterday.
Russia’s foreign minister described the agreement as a U.S. acceptance of one of the four “de-escalation zones” Russia announced after talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, in early May. “Obviously, it will be very difficult to agree on anything in the south-west without the Jordanians and the Americans who are working with the Jordanians and representing the interests of the coalition in this region,” Lavrov told reporters in Hamburg.
On Air Force One, on the return flight to Washington, Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, praised the agreement as a positive first step in ending the violence that has devastated the country after six years of civil war. “It’s the very beginning of attempting to get to some degree of stability in a portion of Syria to begin to get to an outcome there that ends the humanitarian suffering there and begins to bridge toward enduring political settlements in at least parts of that troubled country and for that long-suffering population,” McMaster said.
DEFENSE BUDGET’S MOST DIVISIVE SHIP: The Navy’s long-struggling littoral combat ship, what McCain has called a great disaster, is sailing into summer on a tide of mixed signals and an uncertain future in the 2018 defense budget. The Navy, White House and lawmakers agree more of the unpopular and underperforming $556 million ships need to be built, mostly to keep the Navy’s shipbuilding industrial base humming until a better ship can be designed. All have proposed buying different numbers of the LCS. Analysts say two is likely right, but the Senate is considering just one, the Navy submitted an amended budget request for two, and the House has a bill calling for three. The question remains who will prevail in the debate.
TRUMP JR.’S RUSSIA MEETING: Donald Trump Jr., eldest son of the president, met with a Russian lawyer with connections to the Kremlin after being promised he would receive information damaging to Hillary Clinton, according to a report in the The New York Times. The Times said the meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya took place at Trump Tower on June 9, after Trump had become the Republican nominee and while his son was a member of the campaign.
The report cited anonymous “advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it” to describe the meeting. The Times said the sources did not know if the compromising information on Clinton was ever produced but Trump Jr. attended the meeting with Veselnitskaya under the impression that it would be. Paul Manafort, Trump’s then-campaign chairman, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a White House adviser, also reportedly attended the meeting.
In a statement quoted by the Times, Trump Jr. acknowledged the meeting, which he said he attended at the request of an acquaintance he knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. “After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton,” the statement said. “Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information,” Trump Jr. said.
TILLERSON’S SHUTTLE DIPLOMACY: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia this week, as he attempts to broker a resolution to the Qatar crisis. Last month Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt imposed an economic blockade, and cut diplomatic ties after accusing Qatar of supporting extremists. Last week Qatar rejected the demands of the four Arab nations, which includes shutting down its popular Al Jazeera satellite TV network, and pulling back from Turkey. Tillerson travels from Istanbul to Kuwait City today for talks with Kuwait’s emir, according to the State Department.
NO SANCTIONS RELIEF: In Kiev, Ukraine, yesterday Tillerson met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and declared that sanctions against Moscow will not be lifted until it lives up to the Minsk agreement. “The U.S. and EU sanctions on Russia will remain in place until Moscow reverses the actions that triggered these particular sanctions,” Tillerson said, according to a State Department transcript. “I’ve been very clear in my discussions with Russian leadership on more than one occasion that it is necessary for Russia to take the first steps to de-escalate the situation in the east part of Ukraine, in particular by respecting the ceasefire, by pulling back the heavy weapons, and allowing the OSCE observers to carry out their responsibilities,” Tillerson said.
HOW ONE INTREPID STUDENT SCORED A MATTIS INTERVIEW: Teddy Fischer, a student reporter for the Mercer High School Islander tried a long shot and it worked. He saw a story about how the Washington Post published a photo, which inadvertently showed the private phone number of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Fischer called, left a message, and Mattis called him back, giving him an exclusive 45-minute interview, which is notable both for the Fisher’s smart questions, and Mattis’ thoughtful answers. You can read the full transcript here.
THE RUNDOWN
AP: Trump: U.S. must work with Russia, move past election issues
New York Times: Trump’s son met with Russian lawyer after being promised damaging information on Clinton
Washington Post: Pentagon moves to shut foreign firms out of its supply chain
BuzzFeed: Iraq’s prime minister has declared the “liberation” of Mosul from ISIS
CNN: GOP senators ridicule Trump’s US-Russia cybersecurity unit proposal
USA Today: Trump sends mixed messages on Putin, Russian hacking
Reuters: U.S.-Russian cease-fire deal holding in southwest Syria
Wall Street Journal: One year after Turkish coup, search for justice roils nation
Washington Post: How North Korea got its missile engines
Stars and Stripes: North Korea warns U.S. bombing drills risk pushing peninsula to ‘tipping point’
Daily Beast: How Europe saved global air travel from the U.S. laptop ban
KING-TV: Mercer Island teen calls defense secretary for interview
Calendar
WEEK AHEAD
MONDAY | JULY 10
9 a.m. The Pentagon. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis welcomes Tunisia’s Prime Minister Youssef Chahed for meetings at the Pentagon.
9:30 a.m. Senate Visitor Center 203/02. A panel discussion on the future of air superiority with Air Force Brig. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, Col. Tom Coglitore and Jeff Saling of Air Superiority 2030. mitchellaerospacepower.org
10 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Security and economic development: Silk Road and the Caspian. heritage.org
TUESDAY | JULY 11
8 a.m. 2101 Wilson Blvd. Procurement division meeting. ndia.org
9 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Russia’s Zapad 17 exercise and its implications for NATO and the United States. atlanticcouncil.org
9:30 a.m. Dirksen G-50. Nomination hearing for Richard V. Spencer to be Navy secretary. armed-services.senate.gov
10 a.m. Dirksen 419. Nomination hearing for Jay Patrick Murray to be alternate U.S. representative for special political affairs at the U.N. foreign.senate.gov
10 a.m. Dirksen 342. Nominations of David J. Glawe to be undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, and David P. Pekoske to be assistant secretary of the Transportation Security Administration. hsgac.senate.gov
10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. A blueprint for maximizing the impact of U.S. foreign aid. brookings.edu
11 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. The U.S.-Tunisia strategic partnership and its importance to regional stability with Sen. John McCain and Youssef Chahed, Tunisia chief of government. heritage.org
WEDNESDAY | JULY 12
9 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Post-conflict peacebuilding: Key issues, challenges, lessons learned and best practices. wilsoncenter.org
9:30 a.m. Dirksen G-50. Nomination hearing for Ryan D. McCarthy, for Army under secretary; David J. Trachtenberg, for principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy; Owen O. West, for assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict; Charles D. Stimson, for Navy general counsel. armed-services.senate.gov
9:30 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The war on ISIS and the forgotten need for congressional authorization with Sens. Tim Kaine and Jeff Flake. wilsoncenter.org
10 a.m. Dirksen 419. Consideration of the Taylor Force Act. foreign.senate.gov
2 p.m. Rayburn 2172. Advancing U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere with the Fiscal Year 2018 budget request with Francisco Palmieri, acting assistant secretary of state and Sarah-Ann Lynch, acting assistant administrator with USAID. foreignaffairs.house.gov
2:30 p.m. Rayburn 2200. Subcommittee hearing on black flags over Mindanao and terrorism in Southeast Asia. foreignaffairs.house.gov
2:30 p.m. Dirksen 124. Subcommittee markup of the Fiscal Year 2018 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill. appropriations.senate.gov
THURSDAY | JULY 13
7 a.m. 11100 Johns Hopkins Rd. Integrated air and missile defense symposium. ndia.org
8 a.m. 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Annual technology summit with Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone, commanding general of U.S. Army Cyber Command. defenseone.com
8:45 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Cross-Strait relations re-examined: Toward a new normal? csis.org
9 a.m. 529 14th St. NW. The July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, one year on. press.org
9:30 a.m. Dirksen G-50. Attempted coup in Montenegro and malign Russian influence in Europe with Ambassador Nebojša Kaludjerovic. armed-services.senate.gov
10 a.m. House Visitor Center 210. The persistent threat: Al Qaeda’s evolution and resilience. homeland.house.gov
10:30 a.m. Dirksen 106. Full committee markup of the Fiscal Year 2018 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill. appropriations.senate.gov
12 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Regime change in Iran: From the 1953 coup to the Trump policy review. atlanticcouncil.org
1 p.m. Rayburn 2172. America’s interests in the Middle East and North Africa and the president’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget request with Stuart Jones, acting assistant secretary of state, and Maria Longi, acting assistant administrator with USAID. foreignaffairs.house.gov
2 p.m. House Visitor Center 210. The terrorist diaspora after the fall of the ISIS caliphate. homeland.house.gov
FRIDAY | JULY 14
12 p.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave. NW. Lost in translation? U.S. defense innovation and Northeast Asia. stimson.org
MONDAY | JULY 17
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. The Russia challenge in Europe with Sen. Tom Cotton. csis.org
3:30 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Cyber risk Monday: The darkening Web. atlanticcouncil.org
